Workforce issues key to economic development

Updated 3:58 pm, Friday, January 11, 2013

Ray Romero is the outgoing Workforce Solutions Alamo board chairman and president of HERO Assemblers, a Toyota supplier.

Ray Romero is the outgoing Workforce Solutions Alamo board chairman and president of HERO Assemblers, a Toyota supplier.

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Workforce issues key to economic development

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Workforce Solutions Alamo, or WSA, the local agency charged with overseeing funding for workforce training and employer services in San Antonio and 11 surrounding counties, has been best known over the years for the services it provides to job seekers, especially during recent periods of rising unemployment.

But by January 2011, when I became chairman of the WSA board of directors, the board realized that the best way to connect job-seekers with employment opportunities would be to re-tool our local workforce development and training strategies to better match the labor needs of area employers.

From my own perspective as a supplier to Toyota's San Antonio plant, I am very familiar with the personnel needs of an advanced manufacturing operation. Clearly, for WSA to serve as a strategic economic development asset for San Antonio, it needed to develop a more business-driven approach, both to providing our funded services and to the internal operations of the agency itself.

While there is still work to be done, we've made considerable changes and learned valuable lessons over the past two years.

Since I joined the board in 2007, two executive directors had resigned, and it was clear that in selecting a new leader, we needed someone who could develop relationships with all of our stakeholders: business leaders, elected officials, the contractors that provide direct services and job seekers. For the past 18 months, the agency's new executive director, Patrick W. Newman, has established those relationships, leading with his commitment to a business-driven model of workforce development and collaborating with stakeholders to meet the community's need for a well-trained workforce that encourages businesses to locate here.

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We also realized the need to improve the selection process for contracted workforce services. We designed new RFPs to move us to the forefront of workforce development, freeing the agency from old prototypes of services that have outlived their impact. As the economy changes, immediate needs now arise more often than not — the Eagle Ford Shale is an example — and flexibility and speed in training are more important.

The best example of a more business-driven approach is the Just-in-Time training program which will graduate a projected 500 individuals during 2013 to meet the local occupational demands for machinists and production technicians. This 90-day training program, facilitated and funded by Workforce Solutions Alamo to meet the needs of the San Antonio Manufacturers Association, using the educational resources of Alamo Colleges, is innovative and responsive.

The new strategic plan the board completed in 2012 builds on this success, expanding the Just-in-Time model to the aerospace and the IT industries. In addition, we are focused on making career and technology programs and dual-credit opportunities available for high school students, as a way to invest in our emerging workforce. The plan recognizes other goals, such as increasing access to quality early childhood education and after-school care to prepare children to successfully complete the education required to enter today's workforce.

To make these changes and enhance our ability to respond to the needs of employers and jobseekers, the agency began directing more funding to direct client services and less to administrative costs, with 10 percent more of our funding going directly to customers. Likewise, we implemented a better monitoring system to ensure the proper use of public funds and make sure the dollars we have go to the customers who most need it, increasing accountability to our stakeholders.

While Workforce Solutions Alamo has more recently been recognized as a key asset in economic development, workforce issues must continue to be at the forefront of any conversation about economic growth in the Alamo region. I encourage business owners, trade associations and elected officials to continue including Workforce Solutions Alamo in efforts to attract new businesses and expand existing businesses to close the gap between employer needs and the jobseeker, present and future.

Ray Romero is the outgoing Workforce Solutions Alamo board chairman and president of HERO Assemblers, a Toyota supplier.